Suppose you gain 2000 feet in 7.5 miles at 60 MPH. Speed will be using 15kW. Climbing will be using: 1.5kWh(from Tony's range chart)/1000 feet altitude * 2000 feet/ 0.125 hours, or another 24kW. That's Steven's Pass in Washington, from a little before the "Iron Goat" rest stop to the summit.

WetEV#49Most everything around here is wet during the rainy season. And the rainy season is long.2012 Leaf SL Red (Totaled)2014 Leaf SL Red

guessing 30Kwh if any increase in 2015. Similar to Tesla, there are really no other competitive cars in their price band (you can't count the CA 0 emissions vehicles which are small quantities only).

What will be interesting to see is if Tesla can get down to Leaf price territory before Nissan can up range significantly. I think both companies are at capacity in terms of sales, so neither is that worries about the other yet.

I think Nissan will do a 30KWh and 40KWh option. This would be across models as a $5K option. They will release this in 2015 to take the mojo out of Tesla's Model C. They might even claim an up-to 200mi range.

reeler wrote:I think Nissan will do a 30KWh and 40KWh option. This would be across models as a $5K option. They will release this in 2015 to take the mojo out of Tesla's Model C. They might even claim an up-to 200mi range.

That's with current cells. It's merely a packaging problem, since the 48 kWh version is literally a double size battery.

So, I suspect a big corporation will generally go with the conservative (to them) answer and use the new 30% greater density cells in exactly the same 48 module layout. Then, they will continue to offer the existing cheaper chemistry 24 kWh battery.

For 2017, with the launch of Tesla Model E, they have to get to a 36 - 48 battery size option.

evnow wrote:By the time Model E comes along, they would definitely try to put out at least a 150 mile range car and a discount to Model E.

I agree that Nissan will have something that can compete with the Model E in this model revision or the room/technology to expand the battery without changing the form factor. Maybe a little less range for a little less money.

If Nissan is forward thinking, it will be the same range as Tesla's announcement for the same or less money. If Nissan keeps the battery size the same and reacts after Tesla releases there's, I think there will be some happy Tesla shareholders.